


let's go home

by Rehearsal_Dweller



Series: Learning Normal, Finding Home [4]
Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types, Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan, The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-20
Updated: 2013-11-20
Packaged: 2018-01-02 03:29:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,164
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1052002
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rehearsal_Dweller/pseuds/Rehearsal_Dweller
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It is Marina Jackson's 3rd birthday, her little brother Bobby is almost one, and there are Finding Nemo bandaids.</p>
            </blockquote>





	let's go home

**Author's Note:**

> This is how I'm coping with having done that Wicked AU.  
> There's cuteness and children and family.  
> Yay.  
> Also, I'm _absolutely certain_ that within this 'verse at least one of them has thought about Annabeth/Percy/Nico as a possibility, and I can guarantee that if only one of them has thought about it, _it wasn't Nico_ (but I think it's probably crossed all of their minds at least once).

Marina was turning three. Annabeth and Percy had set up a party – well, more of a mass playdate that happened to involve cookies – with some of the kids from her daycare.

As gatherings of toddlers are always best when there are more adults than children, Nico was roped into helping out. 

(Not that he had particularly protested. He couldn't say no when Marina looked up at him with her big green eyes and said, “Y're gon' be a' the party, right?”)

Annabeth was putting up the last few decorations with help from the birthday girl when the doorbell rang. “Nico, would you get that? It should be Susan and Ben, Sue said they were running a little early.”

Nico nodded and shifted the 9-month-old Bobby Jackson to one side so he had a free arm. He made his way to the front door. When he opened it, he was greeted by a red haired woman holding the hand of an equally bright haired boy. “You must be Susan.”

“Yes, I am. Hello,” the woman replied. “I'm sorry, I don't recognise you. Are you Percy's brother or something?”

“Or something,” Nico said. He held his free hand out for her to shake. “Nico di Angelo, I'm a… friend of the family.”

“Oh, well, nice to meet you,” said Susan.

“Well, come in. Annie's in the living room taping up streamers with 'Rina,” Nico told her. “Everybody else will be here soon.”

Before long, the house was overrun with toddlers.

Somebody tugged on the edge of Nico's shirt. He looked down and saw his goddaughter holding her hands out. “Up?”

“Don't you want to play with your friends?” asked Nico.

Marina gave him her best _you-will-do-what-I-say_ look (a hybrid of her father's _I'm-a-loveable-goofball-how-can-you-say-no_ and her mother's _I-can-kill-you-with-this-spoon_ ). “Up.”

Nico scooped her up, laughing. “Fine, fine. Now, missy, you only ever do this when you want a ride somewhere. Where are we headed?”

“Kitchen,” answered Marina, smiling sweetly. “Daddy's 'opposed t'be done with the cookies now.”

“Is he now?” Nico replied. “Well let's go see if he's ready to bring them in here, shall we?”

He carried Marina through the house to the kitchen, where they found Percy arranging chocolate chip cookies on a plate. “Daaaaddyyyyyy!” the little girl called.

“Why, if it isn't the birthday girl!” replied Percy, grinning. He leaned over and kissed each of them on the forehead. “What brings you away from the party?”

Marina rolled her eyes. “ _Nico_ , duuuh.”

Percy and Nico glanced at each other and burst out laughing.

Once he'd regained control, Nico bounced Marina twice. “Are you gonna tell him why we're here?”

“Cookies!” exclaimed Marina.

“Yeah, yeah,” Percy said. “I'll bring them out in a minute, okay? “

“Yeah!” Marina replied. “And presents after!”

“Yep, presents after,” agreed Percy.

“Okay, Miss 'Rina, let's go back out to your friends and let your daddy finish up,” said Nico.

“Let's go, let's go!” Marina said.

As soon as they returned to the living room, Marina wriggled out of Nico's arms and scurried over to her friends.

“Hey, Nic, we're doing presents after cookies. Would you run upstairs and grab the box for cards and a garbage bag for the wrapping paper?” Annabeth requested like she had a mystical Percy-and-Mari-were-talking-about-presents sense.

“Yeah, no problem,” Nico replied. He walked to the stairs, pressing a quick kiss to Annabeth's cheek as he passed. “I'll be right back.” 

He ran up, past the kids' room, past his bedroom, to the hall closet where Annabeth had been keeping the shoebox that Percy and Marina had decorated with fish and owl and skull stickers for the birthday cards. He pulled a garbage bag out of the box on the shelf, too.

“Nico!” Percy called from downstairs.

“Yeah, Perce?”

“Bring bandaids, Mia tripped and cut her knee!”

“ _Gods_ , Perce, you've got a toddler and an infant in the house, you'd think you'd keep less sharp objects lying around on the floor!” Nico yelled back, but he stopped in the bathroom and grabbed the Finding Nemo bandaids – _seriously, where does Percy_ find _these things, that movie came out like 15 years ago_ – anyway before running downstairs.

When he reached the living room, the kids were already nibbling on their chocolate chip cookies and Susan and another mom were giving Nico curious looks. Nico carefully ignored them and handed the bandaids off to Percy and the card box and garbage bag to Annabeth, who grins and hands him a cookie in return.

“Thanks, Annie,” he said. “Hey, didn't Percy make these?”

“He did indeed,” replied Annabeth, smiling. “It's a miracle they're not blue.”

Nico laughed, which caught the eye of the judgemental/confused daycare moms again. He opened his mouth to say something else to Annabeth, but then he noticed that Bobby was making an escape attempt and ran to catch him.

–

The family party was completely different.

For one, there was actual cake.

(It was blue. Big surprise.)

For another, Nico was able to hang back a little more, because there was an adult-to-child ratio of about 5:1. He stood in the doorway until present time, when Marina grabbed him by the front of his shirt, forced him onto the couch, and climbed onto his lap.

All of the pictures of Marina with her presents this year have Nico just behind her, with varying expressions of confusion and distaste (unless she was looking at him, in which case he was grinning or laughing or mocking her father, who sat to their right).

The picture that everybody loves – the one that ends up framed on the wall and in everybody's wallets and on Grandma Sally and Grandpa Paul's mantel – was taken when none of them were looking. The five of them – Percy, Marina, Nico, Bobby, and Annabeth – were all squished onto the smaller of the two couches, with Percy laughing at something that Nico just said, with Marina waving her stuffed fish in her giggling little brother's face, and with Annabeth watching the whole scene and smiling serenely.

(The flash caught Nico's eye, and he looked up and saw a _very smug_ Jason Grace holding the camera.)

Stupid meddling sons of Jupiter aside, Nico considered the two parties a success.

The last present opened wasn't at a party. 

It was over dinner, and Marina unwrapped it with quite a lot of excitement.

Until she actually got it open, at which point she frowned at it, confused.

“Wha's it?” she asked.

“It's a fairytale book,” Nico said.

“The words don' look like on th'other one,” said Marina, pointing to the title.

“No, no they don't,” replied Nico. “Remember how I told you that when I was little I didn't live in America?”

“Uh huh.”

“Well this is in the language I learned first,” Nico explained. “Your mama said I could teach you.”

“S'in – uh – whatsit?”

Annabeth chuckled. “Italian.”

“That!”

“Yep,” said Nico.

“Will you read to me from it at bedtime tonight?” Marina requested.

“Yeah, of course, 'Rina. Of course.”


End file.
